Read Online Wry Martinis by Christopher Buckley - Free Book Online

might take some stretch of the imagination to envision the more than fifty-mile shipping canal between Houston and Galveston as something other than a bleak industrial waterway. But the state’s Port Authoritythinks that with “a little fixing up and some plumb luck” it can convince tourists that it might be fun to pass the time in pedal boats, observing up close the many varieties of mutant catfish while trying to avoid being shredded by the giant propellers of tankers and cargo vessels.
    “We think it’s a natural,” said Joe (Bob) Gorman, Jr., who is overseeing the plan for the Port Authority. “People could fish, though they might want to check with that center in Atlanta before eating anything they catch. And if you’ve never paddled to get out of the way of an ultralarge crude carrier, well, shoot, you haven’t lived.”
I N P HOENIX , P ACKAGE T OURS OF B ILLBOARD A DS
    Calling Phoenix “the billboard capital of the United States,” the city’s Department of Cultural Preservation announced today that it will conduct specialized tours of its billboards.
    P.D.C.P. Commissioner Faith Quigley said the plan “isn’t just to try to show people every billboard in Phoenix. That’s like trying to see everything in the Louvre.”
    Instead, tours will be organized by theme: Colas, Fast-Food Chains, Bail Bondsmen, and Cigarettes are among the first. Future themes will include Muffler Repairs, Topless Bars, Gun Shops, and Immigration Lawyers.
N EVADA TO S HOW T OURISTS M OB B URIAL S ITES IN D ESERT
    The Las Vegas Tourist Development Board announced today that, in partnership with La Cosa Nostra Offshore Legitimate Partners Ltd., it would license tour operators to take visitors to the secret final resting places of alleged gangsters.
    One concession, Shut Up and Get in the Trunk Tours, will begin operations next month. Owner Frank “Teddy Bear” P., who explained that his last name “ain’t nobody’s business,” says he will “give the customer more than just a look at some—shall we say—real fertile spots in the desert. We’re gonna give them the whole nine yards.”
    Tourists will be “forced” at “gunpoint” to get into the trunks of dark sedans. The “trunks” will be air-conditioned and equipped with comfortableseats, wet bars, and slot machines. “It’ll be real nice, I guarantee,” Mr. P. said.
    A tourist board spokesman said the tours should draw a variety of customers, from amateur archeologists to forensic scientists. He called the plan “part of Las Vegas’s continuing program to become America’s No. One family destination.”
    —
The New York Times
, 1996

Why I’m
Running

    My very fellow Americans: Today, here, on the steps of this historic building, I am announcing my candidacy for President of the United States.
    Yes, there are a lot of other people running for President, but I firmly believe I am uniquely qualified for this, the highest office in this great nation of ours, and I intend to explain why.
    First, however, let me address a more urgent question, and that is the future facing our children’s children’s children’s children. And their children. When their time comes, our time will have passed. But they will look back and say, “What was all that about?” Someone will have to answer. And that someone is why I am running. My friends, today I say to you, I want to be that someone.
    There is a wise saying where I come from. It has been handed down over the ages, and it goes something like this: “Do not give away your socks unless you like going barefoot.”
    Well, today I am taking off my socks and giving them to the American people.
    I do not particularly like going barefoot. But if that is the price of democracy, then I say, “So be it.”
    I know that people will look at me, in that wonderful American way of ours, and say, “It is cold out, and your toes are turning blue.” But I know also that there are larger things at stake than blue, or even brittle,